'The Dark Knight Rises' -- 2 1/2 stars

R; 2:44 running time Christopher Nolan's third in the planned trilogy will likely satisfy many who fell headlong into the previous two. The new film works on your nervous system the way composer Hans Zimmer¿s kettle drums of doom keeps tightening the screws, long after the screws are tight. There are many things to admire in ¿The Dark Knight Rises,¿ and Nolan¿s bombast is a far, far higher grade than you¿d find in a ¿Transformers¿ movie. But nothing in the new film, which turns Gotham over to the masked terrorist Bane, played by an occasionally intelligible Tom Hardy, meets or exceeds the crises of "The Dark Knight," especially that picture's ferry-boat sequence, where Gotham¿s residents found themselves in a no-win situation and somehow won anyway. -- Michael PhillipsRead the full "The Dark Knight Rises" movie review

R; 2:44 running time Christopher Nolan's third in the planned trilogy will likely satisfy many who fell headlong into the previous two. The new film works on your nervous system the way composer Hans Zimmer¿s kettle drums of doom keeps tightening the screws, long after the screws are tight. There are many things to admire in ¿The Dark Knight Rises,¿ and Nolan¿s bombast is a far, far higher grade than you¿d find in a ¿Transformers¿ movie. But nothing in the new film, which turns Gotham over to the masked terrorist Bane, played by an occasionally intelligible Tom Hardy, meets or exceeds the crises of "The Dark Knight," especially that picture's ferry-boat sequence, where Gotham¿s residents found themselves in a no-win situation and somehow won anyway. -- Michael PhillipsRead the full "The Dark Knight Rises" movie review

R; 2:44 running time Christopher Nolan's third in the planned trilogy will likely satisfy many who fell headlong into the previous two. The new film works on your nervous system the way composer Hans Zimmer¿s kettle drums of doom keeps tightening the screws, long after the screws are tight. There are many things to admire in ¿The Dark Knight Rises,¿ and Nolan¿s bombast is a far, far higher grade than you¿d find in a ¿Transformers¿ movie. But nothing in the new film, which turns Gotham over to the masked terrorist Bane, played by an occasionally intelligible Tom Hardy, meets or exceeds the crises of "The Dark Knight," especially that picture's ferry-boat sequence, where Gotham¿s residents found themselves in a no-win situation and somehow won anyway. -- Michael PhillipsRead the full "The Dark Knight Rises" movie review